


19

by bunnybinnie



Series: Late Night Thoughts [6]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Athazagoraphobia, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Light Angst, Loneliness, No Dialogue, Nostalgia, Overthinking, Time Anxiety, feeling like a child, implied unhealthy coping mechanisms, procrastination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29399097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnybinnie/pseuds/bunnybinnie
Summary: "I just want to stop timeI’m still not ready" [SKZ - 19]
Series: Late Night Thoughts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889530
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	19

**Author's Note:**

> I could've chosen Jisung for this. I could've. But Changbin seemed like the best choice, to me? It's just some venting fic so, anyway, enjoy!

Changbin has always been the guy that hears “ _You think too much_ ” on a daily basis. Sometimes, people spice things up by saying “ _You’re looking too deep into it_ ” instead, but the meaning is the same. The result doesn’t change either: Changbin just regrets once again talking about how he feels, because truly, it feels like people are just shutting him off. And maybe it’s because he is truly thinking too much, that it’s like they’re discreetly telling him that his worries are stupid.

The truth is, if people are annoyed by his constant worries and questions, he is the first one who wishes he could just… stop. Stop thinking, stop asking, sometimes stop everything altogether. Stop living, maybe? Well, not really, because he doesn’t _always_ want to die (it does happen), but he often wants to stop existing. At least in this realm of existence. Changbin always feels like an idiot when he daydreams about an alternate reality that’s just different. A life where things are as good as they come; where no one expects nothing from him, and where whatever he does (doesn’t do?) doesn’t have consequences.

It’s too much. Life’s too much. He has so much stuff to do, but he can’t bring himself to even start one thing. Does he even know where to begin? It’s like he’s stuck, he knows how the end result should look, but he’s missing the memo to actually _get there_. He knows if he keeps pushing it, he will lack time and will end up half-ass everything _as he always does anyway_. People make it look so easy, so why he can’t he do it too? Maybe he’s just lazy. He hates it but that might just be true, so he tries to accept it. He’s lazy and he doesn’t care. Except that he does care, he cares too much. Changbin knows he will fail if he doesn’t do something _right now_ , yet he keeps scrolling on his phone, trying to shush his mind with music. He’s gonna fail. He’s a failure. Everyone’s gonna be so ashamed. His parents will wonder where the hell they did wrong when everything was _finally going so well_. He will be left with nothing to do in life when his future used to be all drawn out in front of him. What will he do if he can’t be the only thing he wants to be? Well, maybe not the only thing, but clearly the one thing he can actually make a living of. It’s not that he doesn’t like the career he’s chosen, he does for the most part, but there are things he likes even more. Like writing. But he surely can’t live off that, _not with that writing._

He goes on with his everyday life. He tries to ignore how scared he always feel and laughs it off. But when he’s alone, music playing as he can’t bring himself to remain in silence, all the questions hit him twice as hard.

Most are some existential questions that Changbin knows are just overthinking. Stupid stuff like _why is he alive?_ His own mind astonished that hundreds of years, hundreds of people in the same family tree _led to him._ Always that lingering nostalgia for something he can’t pinpoint, a time that he has maybe never known. _What the hell is he missing?_ Like an immortal being that has no recollection of his past, he feels like he’s been through centuries he wasn’t born in, and maybe that’s where the missing piece comes from. Maybe past lives are real, and he has one, and all he’s missing is the one thing he still hasn’t done _but he never does anything because he can’t start anything._

Sometimes it’s just a weird fixation on the past, his own and those of others, a past he ignores exist, and the one that is still called the future. How people used to live, how he used to live, and how his life right now will only be a memory, eventually forgotten. How many memories, how many lives, how many pasts have been forgotten just like he will, too? The different people, the different civilizations, all the languages and folklores, that are now gone. What if someone had to mourn everything and everyone that had been lost to time, to evolution, to creation and invention, to life…? Then it’s definitely him.

Ha, “to mourn’. What an interesting comparison he has just made, he thinks to himself. Maybe it’s the closest word he can find to how he feels, because he can’t find any other. But what is he mourning? Is he mourning the child he once was? Is he mourning the present that he can’t enjoy, mourning in advance for when his youth will be gone and all that he will have left will be memories and regrets? Changbin sure wants to know. _What is dead? Who is?_ Is it him, or is it _in_ him?

“The child he once was” or should he say, the child he still is? Is the child in him gone forever as he grew up, or its traces are still engraved in him? Is that the reason why the world sometimes seems so big compared to him, he’s so small next to others, even younger than him? Like his body grew up without him, leaving a scared and abandoned child-like mind behind it, wondering what to do and desperately waiting for someone to hug him and reassure him - a needed parental figure to guide him until he, too, would have time to grow up into the adult he’s supposed to be.

Unless everyone feels that way too. But how come everyone, ex-children now not-knowing-what-to-do adults, can manage life so well? How are they so good at hiding that they don’t know what the fuck is going on most of the time? If it is a shared feeling, why is Changbin struggling so much with it? _And why is everyone telling him he’s just “thinking too much”?_

He can’t help it. No matter what he does, the thoughts are always somewhere in the darkest parts of his mind, creeping on him like ants. _He hates bugs._ He can feel them crawl on his skin, twisting his heart and making him feel sick, making him feel like he doesn’t belong anywhere. Not the right time. Not the right life. Not the right planet.

Time. It eithers goes too slow, or too fast. No in-between. He hates time, and somehow, he’s scared of it. He’s scared that time is going by too fast for him to catch up. It’s time that makes him grow up; time changes things. Because time exist, there are ends. He’s alright with beginnings, but hates endings. Whatever it is, endings make him feel some sort of way he can’t describe, but it resembles that weird nostalgia for a time that he doesn’t know or doesn’t exist yet. He fights sleep so the day can lasts forever, but tomorrow still comes too fast anyway. No matter what he does, tomorrow will come and end, the week will end, the year will end. Why does everything pass by so fast when time seems to stretch? He’s been there for too long, but somehow not long enough.

Yet, he won’t talk about it. He can’t find the right words. He doesn’t want to be a burden. He bottles it up, until he explodes again. But even when he explodes and bad habits make him do or say regrettable things, he’s alright because after all, _he’s just looking too deep into it._

**Author's Note:**

> that feels a bit like word-vomit, but i hope it was still enjoyable  
> thank you for reading (and somehow, for listening to me?)   
> take care xx


End file.
